RTI campaigner booked for attempt to kill

Dinesh Chadha, an advocate who raised his voice against the collection of ‘goonda tax’ on sand and gravel in Rupnagar district, has been booked in an attempt to murder case at Nangal police station.

Amarjit Singh, an employee of mining contractor Varinder Singh, had got the case registered alleging that he was attacked with sharp-edged and other weapons with an intention to kill him by some persons at the behest of Dinesh Chadha near Nangran village in the Nangal area when he had asked the occupants of two vehicles loaded with sand about the royalty slip.

Police registered the case under Sections 323 (punishment for causing hurt voluntarily), 307 (attempt to murder), 506 (criminal intimidation by an anonymous communication), 148 (armed riot), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object) and 120-B of Indian Penal Code (IPC) against the alleged assailants and Dinesh Chadha. The complainant alleged that Chadha was behind the attack as he had refused to pay the royalty for sand.

Chadha has been vociferous against the collection of ‘goonda tax’ in Nurpur Bedi block of Rupnagar district. He had filed a complaint with the police in this regard on March 4.

“I have been falsely implicated in the case. It has been done to scare and pressurise me not to pursue my complaint on the collection of goonda tax,” Chadha alleged.

He said police had failed to act on his complaint despite the fact that there were clear-cut Supreme Court judgments on the mandatory registration of a first- infor mation report (FIR) if a cognizable offence is disclosed.